Help with Abit Dark Raider Reboot Loop

[edgemeister]

Hi Guys, I was wondering if you could help me as I'm going nuts here.

I've recently just built a machine using an ABit Dark Rider motherboard and when I turn the machine on I get a long bleep, which stops when the power ultimately turns off 3 seconds later. Then it just loops that over and over again.

I've tried various combinations of power connections and leaving certain things unplugged to no avail.

I've got the thing on a carboard box comprising of the motherboard, CPU, fan, a stick of RAM and my graphics card.

I've tried unplugging everything, putting the cmos jumper into its clear position, removing the bios battery and waiting a while but that doesn't work either.

I'm at work not and so can't try any suggestions immediatley but any help would be appreciated.

I just read somewhere that it might be something to do with memory voltages and one person suggested sticking the RAM into slot 4, this allows the thing to reach the bios, then I can change the voltage. The RAMs voltage is 1.8v. Is this not the default that the dark rider gives out? If not I'll try that tonight.

My hardware comprises of the following:

Abit Dark Raider IP35
Intel Q6600 SLACR
Corsair TwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800)
Corsair 650w PSU
Palit GeForce 8800GT

Thanks guys,

John

[jimborae]

Almost certainly is the ram as mine does this after the cmos has been reset and I try to boot with two sticks at default volts.

As some one else has suggested just boot with one stick (I use slot 1) and then up the ram voltage in the bios to 2.2volts, save, reboot, shut down, insert other stick of ram and you should be good to go.

[edgemeister]

Hey there,

My problem is that, with a ram stick in slot 1, the problem still occurs and so prevents me from entering the bios to change voltages.

Cheers,

John

[jimborae]

Try using another slot then as the other user you read about did. Hopefully that should do the trick.

[edgemeister]

Thanks guys, its all working now.

It didn't originally, I put the ram in slot 4 and it did exactly the same thing, but out of sheer frustration i bashed all the keys on power on. This suddenly made a bios safe mode screen appear to which I matched the voltage output to the require ram voltage (1.90).

Cheers,

John

[jimborae]

Glad to hear you've got it working now . However if it were me I'd bump up the ram voltage to 2.0v or 2.1V just to be on the safe side. It wont cause any damage and provides extra juice in case the board every decides to under volt the ram a bit which is not unknown.

[edgemeister]

Hey there,

I'll give it a try when I get home tonight then.

I did try 2.1v but it ended up not working when I did that so I looked on the side of the ram, saw 1.90 and just set it at that.

Serves me right for trying to save £10 by buying cheaper ram...

It corsair though....

Cheers,

John

[LuckyNV]

with some BIOS if you hold Insert key during boot you can force the BIOS to POST with safe settings. Perhaps you did that with your keyboard bashing

[rover214]

i had the same problem using OCZ ram, wouldn't boot for love nor money

bought a 1gb stick of corsair ddr667 that was guaranteed at 1.8v and no probs booting

still had probs with the other ram but, now have ballistix tracers and no probs encountered